


what the water gave me

by EtherealPrince



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Dadriel, Gen, The Great Flood (HDM), assume asriel is trans in everything i write, excessive prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:08:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26852698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EtherealPrince/pseuds/EtherealPrince
Summary: Asriel brings Lyra to Jordan College during the Great Flood. POV-exploring fic, Asriel loves his daughter.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	what the water gave me

**Author's Note:**

> please tell me what you think! this was the result of watching 1x01's beginning scene around five billion times.

“There. Set us down--look, do you see the airship lawn, just beyond those trees?”

Thorold is a reliable pilot when he needs to be one, when for any reason Asriel isn’t able to pilot his own gyrocopter, but his aging eyes turn far-away trees into blobs and fades the night sky into the horizon. It’s hard to direct him on where to land when the earth is lit only by the moon and the ocean has spilled over onto the land, turning everything dark and murky and nebulous.

Thorold leans forward over his controls, and squints at the treeline. The towering spires of Jordan College pierce the night sky like daggers, and it’s hard to see anything else below them, even for someone younger.

“Ah, I see it. Hold on.”

Asriel presses his back to his seat and raises his eyes up past towers of steel and stone, past clouds, and listens to the whirring of the gyrocopter’s propeller as Thorold flies them down to a rare dry patch of land just before Jordan College’s main courtyard. The rushing of water fills his ears the closer they get to the ground, and Stelmaria, who was curled up behind his knees, shivers.

It has stopped raining for the moment--a lucky reprieve from mother earth’s revenge against her human tormentors. All that is left is the ocean water slowly filling Oxfordshire’s streets as dams burst and rivers overflow with burgeoning pressure. Until now Asriel has been running himself ragged all over the city, directing evacuation parties and transporting people to and fro by way of land, air, or sea (whichever was possible). There is no one at Jordan College right now except its dutiful headmaster and most loyal teaching staff, he is sure. The school would never be left unattended, not even during a catastrophe like this.

Until now, Asriel has had rescuing to do. Until now, he was the unflinching, commanding leader who led the relief effort for english citizens affected by the flood. Until now, he was who everyone thought he was.

Only Thorold got to see Asriel at his most vulnerable during the entire flood; when he ran without thinking twice into an abandoned nunnery to retrieve his only daughter from the quickly-rising tides.

He had clambered back into the gyrocopter and urged Thorold to take off again while the older man sat there, confused and shocked, at the baby Asriel now had clutched to his chest. Asriel had shot him a very compelling ‘don’t ask questions’ kind of look, and without a word they took off in the direction of Jordan college--and now, here they were.

“Stay here.” Asriel shouts to Thorold over the noise of the gyrocopter and the wind whistling through the trees. “I’ll be back soon.”

Thorold, whose voice was not as strong as it used to be, nodded vigorously to him and cast a worried look down to the child in his arms. Asriel had never told him he was a father, and he had no idea how she came to be.

Asriel multitasks stepping down from the raised ledge of the gyrocopter without losing his balance--Stelmaria prowls next to him very closely in case he falls, but he doesn’t-- and keeping his daughter securely held in his long, battered coat. She is looking up at him, babbling and smiling, completely unaware of the damage and death that had overrun her hometown, and perhaps is only bothered by the cold. Asriel tugs the thin blanket surrounding her little body further up against her neck and descends the hill they had landed on toward the water.

With the night came the fog, and Jordan is almost completely obscured by it when Asriel first steps into the flooded courtyard. It’s cold, bitingly cold, and he grits his teeth so hard that he fears they might crack from the pressure. His heavy clothes are going to feel twice as much when he gets out and he might get hypothermia, but it doesn’t matter. She matters more.

Lyra, as that was her name, grabs onto the fur collar of his coat and hangs on tight with one hand, stuffing her other into her mouth. He’s knee deep in freezing water by now, but still, Asriel stops and uses one finger to gently pull her fist away and tuck it next to her chest again. A tiny little ermine pokes out of the blanket next to her neck and snuffles at his hand momentarily, with its miniscule wet nose and big beady eyes. His name was Pantalaimon.

Stelmaria is able to glide into the water more easily than Asriel can, and she patiently waits for him as he slowly makes his way down the descent until the water is as deep as it can go, halfway up his chest. Everything below that is numb and he can barely feel his legs, but by some miracle they keep moving through the resisting waves.

Except, they’re not _waves_ anymore, not really. More like...ripples. The water in the courtyard is eerily calm, now, nothing like it was earlier. The wind must have been blocked by the buildings and no longer pushes every tree around, back and forth. If nothing else, Asriel is thankful that it allows him to move quicker through the water. The less time Lyra spent out in the freezing night, the better.

The fog gives the water an almost milky hue, dark and smooth, nothing visible beneath its surface. Asriel hears it lap around him, hears Stelmaria paddling along beside him, hears Lyra cooing and sniffling. He adjusts her head in his left hand--it was so small.

It is not an easy job, holding multiple pounds of infant above your chest while wading through deep water, but Asriel manages. Whether it was thrill of fear or simply an overdose of adrenaline, he manages, and barely feels his arms begin to burn and ache when he’s halfway across the courtyard and his teeth start to chatter against his will. His clothes are wet, his hair is wet, his skin is wet. Everything’s wet.

Except Lyra.

Asriel was known to the world and everyone who knew him as stern, stoic, unapproachable, cold. It was a complex image he had built up over many years and had fine tuned to get the best reaction out of everyone he met. The only person who had been able to break it before was Marisa, but now Lyra had torn him down, inserted herself stubbornly into his heart, and then built him back up again around her so that she would never leave it. She was only two, three months old, but she had so much personality and potential that it floored Asriel every time he looked into her eyes and saw obvious, enthusiastic curiosity. Inquisitiveness. Wonder.

In the light landing on the water, he could see Lyra’s pupils restrict, big brown eyes reflecting into his own frigid blue. For all of her personality she was still so innocent, so pure, so new. He dared the Dust to ever find its way into her heart, for he was confident it would not be able to find a way in.

He looked at her--she looked at him. Lyra raised her hand and gently bopped it on his scruffy cheek, in some form of play, and if he wasn’t frozen to the bone and exhausted to his very core he would smile at her, clasp her hand in his broad, calloused one, and hum little nonsense lullabies to her like he used to do when she was a newborn and wouldn’t sleep through the night.

He couldn’t do that anymore, though. It was the entire reason why Asriel and Lyra were at Jordan college in the first place. No more lullabies, no more playing. He was confident there was no safer place for her to stay at permanently than Jordan College, where they accepted everyone and rejected no one. Asriel had enemies, and Marisa had enemies, and they no longer wanted anything to do with each other, so Lyra was better off away. The headmaster was kind, and wise, and he would be good for her. Not a thrill seeking explorer and a manipulative, Magisterium-aligned scholar. 

Asriel shouldn’t be her father, as much as he wants to be. As much as he aches to be. He just...shouldn’t.

He doesn’t know if he will ever see his daughter again after this. Maybe that’s really what’s slowing him down, maybe that’s what’s making him drag his feet and weaken his arms. These last few precious moments he will have with her might be all he has to remember for the rest of his life--the moments where his baby girl looked at him like he hung the moon and stars just for her, held her above a watery death as Brytain flooded around them. The courtyard is big, but not that big, and every step Asriel takes feels heavier than the last.

Asriel almost hesitates to bang his fist on the entrance door. For now, it is quiet, and for now it’s just him and Lyra, alone, but there is really no time to waste. He knocks before he can overthink it too much and listens to the echo of his fist hitting wood rattle around in his brain. 

The master opens up and Asriel gives his daughter to him as delicately as he would take his own heart out and put it in his hands, and it hurts just as much. He’s giving up his daughter, he thinks, he’s giving up his baby. Everything Asriel did was for the greater good, this included, but hurt so very much. The hole in his soul that Lyra leaves as her warmth fades from his palms is open, bleeding, stinging, but salt water cleanses wounds and Asriel is chest-deep in it.

Lyra seems to be staring up at the master curiously instead of turning her head back to Asriel, which he is thankful for. He can’t hold her gaze for too long lest he gives in to his selfish desires and surges back in to kiss her forehead and give her his love, he has to _leave_ and he has _work_ to do. Instead of pressing his lips to his daughter’s skin he uses them to impress upon the master the utmost importance of keeping her safe, of how important she is to him and how he cannot do anything else for her other than this. There is water on his face, in his eyes and soaking his beard and salty in his mouth. It’s too dark and too cold for anyone to tell but Asriel thinks he might be weeping.

With one last glance down to Lyra he swiftly turns around and begins to make his way back to the hill where Thorold and the gyrocopter sit, waiting for his return. He can feel the master’s eyes bore holes into his back as he leaves, unburdened and hurrying, but Stelmaria nudges him with her nose and he keeps going.

The water is still silent, dark, and silken. The wind has not picked up again.

Thorold is anxiously tapping his hands on his knees in the copter when Asriel drags himself back up into it again, thoroughly soaked through with water like a wet dog and carrying nothing. He says nothing, as does Thorold, but his servant seems to know everything all the same. He quietly starts the gyrocopter up again and its thrumming engine fills Asriel’s head again, propelling him to close his eyes, tilt his head forward to his chest and cross his arms tight to himself. He was still shivering, as was Stelmaria, and the shiver was deeper than muscle or bone or nerve-- it cut through to his spirit.

The cold wind from the night air picked up by the copter blow dries Asriel in a matter of minutes, but all it does for his temperature is lower it further. He is an unmoving statue in his seat, stuck there by salt and wet leather, by the haunting guilt he feels from abandoning his own child. Asriel peels his eyes open against the wind and looks down at the darkened Jordan, wondering if somewhere inside the master was getting Lyra warm and dry, feeding her, comforting her, trying to make her forget about her father who had given her away. 

If Asriel was strong, he would not see her again, but where his daughter was concerned he had always been weak. Maybe not in a week, not a month, not a year, but someday. Someday he would see her again. Someday, maybe the alethiometer he had tucked into her blanket would return to him from her hands.


End file.
